


Howl

by sistabro



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s05e11 Sam Interrupted, Gen, Mental Institutions, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-24
Updated: 2010-05-24
Packaged: 2017-10-09 16:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistabro/pseuds/sistabro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam can't sleep. This is a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howl

**Author's Note:**

> So instead of finishing up work, I wrote comment fic for the Sam's Birthday comment meme over at [ohsam](http://community.livejournal.com/ohsam/18094.html) for [this](http://community.livejournal.com/ohsam/18094.html?thread=173998#t173998) prompt. Title from the Ginsberg poem of the same name.

Ceaseless, corny, fake howling practically vibrates the wall next to Sam's bed. Wolfman the aides half-jokingly call the big burly guy in 12B. Pretty much the whole wing wants to gank the dude because, well, even crazy violent motherfuckers like to sleep. Except, that is, for Sam, who specifically asked to be placed next door. Lied and said he couldn't sleep in the quiet, grew up in coyote country and the howls and yips were like a lullaby. The doctors and aides had given him the hairy eyeball, but crazy is as crazy does and this place is nothing but crazy. So Sam doesn't sleep much, and, as a bonus, the guy he'd swapped rooms with gives Sam all his desserts in gratitude for finally being able to snag an actual eight hours.

Who gets the extra cookie now, Dean, huh?

Of course, Dean doesn't answer because, well, Dean isn't here, thank Christ. Sam isn't that off his rocker yet. They'd gotten caught in the uproar after killing the wraith, drugged unconscious, and the next lucid memory Sam has is waking up in his first room in Pendelton Asylum—aka, prison for the violently insane—strapped to the bed and feeling like his tongue had shriveled up and died. Needless to say, security is a hell of a lot tighter than at Glenwood, which puts a major damper on any escape plan. Not that Sam is trying particularly hard to break out anymore.

Because you see, once he had been eased out of the drugged semi-coma that all new intakes at Pendleton were put into to help with their transition, Sam had started dreaming again. And not his normal cuddly dreams of stopping Dean's heart with an outstretched hand with the taste of blood in his throat or listening to his brother call him a monster while looking at him with disgust and disappointment or watching the sky burn and people with beetle black eyes tear themselves apart. No, it's Lucifer sitting on a chair or leaning against a wall and talking in that smooth, soothing, soft voice and being oh so fucking reasonable.

And Sam, well, he's a sucker for reason, always has been. It had been his go to strategy as a child for trying to wrest at least a little bit of control of his life from his father and Dean. Shit, he had signed up to be a lawyer because of it, that comforting appeal to logic and decency and reason.

So sleep is out. Hence the howling every night, which is good for at least a few hours of wakefulness. After that, when Wolfman finally yips and whines himself to sleep, there's PT—katas, pushups, situps and jacks—until his coordination gives out and he is reduced to staggering between the walls of his cell until they start unlocking the doors and herding everyone to breakfast.

Sam isn't stupid. He knows that he has to sleep sometime. But he has spent large portions of his life as a high functioning insomniac; he can put it off a hell of a lot longer than most. Especially here, where high functioning is considered being able to feed yourself, swallow your spit, speak instead of bark, and give some warning that you are working up to a violent freak out instead of randomly stabbing people with pencils while giggling. With those kind of standards, Sam has found he can push two weeks, sometimes even almost three, subsiding on disjointed cat naps during the day, before he needs some long term shut eye.

He usually knows its time when he starts seeing Dean full on instead of just hearing him make snide, snarky comments in his head. It hurts to see his brother in this place, even as a hallucination. Cuts Sam right to the bone to see the sad worried looks Dean shoots his way, like he still cares about Sam, still likes him and is proud of him and trusts him. Like he still wants to be his brother and make sure Sam is all right.

Then, under Dean's sad gaze, Sam will stage a freak out, start throwing shit and taking clumsy swings at the air, shouting nonsense about ghosts until the aides come and stick him full of needles, drug him down so deep that his mind can barely form dreams of muted swirls of colors let along hold a conversation with the Devil. They keep him down for two, three days. Three days of the worst kind of sleep, but it gets him by.

It won't get him by forever, though. Sam's been through a few cycles already and each time he gets less out of the enforced slumber. His muscles and joints always ache now from the constant movement and nightly exercising, tiny tears that multiply and never get a chance to heal. He's lost weight, slurs on the rare occasion he speaks, and his burning eyes have more or less completely lost the ability to focus, rendering the world in blobs and swirls. As for thinking, well that doesn't really happen after the first week with no sleep. All he has his stubborn doggedness to keep him up and moving until Dean starts eating lunch in front of him.

Sam knows he's unraveling, slowly but surely, because it's getting harder and harder to remember that the Dean in his head is just Sam's mind reacting to stress and boredom. It's getting harder to convince himself that it isn't Dean's ghost haunting him, when he keeps catching half glimpses of his brother out of the corner of his overtired eyes. It's getting harder to remember that he doesn't want Dean here, not at all, even though the loneliness is almost worse than the never ending exhaustion.

Sam knows that this endless sleeplessness is just a different way to break himself on the Devil's altar. But Sam isn't planning on doing it forever. No, he's aiming for just long enough to give his brother the time he needs to save the world. Because that's what Dean does, saves people, saves Sam.

Sam just wishes Dean would hurry the fuck up though, before Wolfman isn't the only one howling heartbreak into the night.


End file.
